Steven Toy
Accuphase newbie
The Scottish National Socialist Party of Great Britain?
Maybe they could drop the 'Scottish' part altogether.
UK Election 2015
- Thread starter Rasher
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The Scottish National Socialist Party of Great Britain?
Maybe they could drop the 'Scottish' part altogether.
Quite correct, Mick. We have never had a democracy, we have a representative democracy, so the elected representatives did as they felt right. You may not agree with what they did, but there is nothing unconstitutional in their actions. The scum.
Tony L
Administrator
I voted Lib Dem, as I do every election, as I believe very firmly in proportional representation and do not consider the current system fit to be called a democracy let alone fit for purpose. The Lib Dems were the only party campaigning for it and, yes, I am very disappointed indeed that they sold out for the AV+ scam. I'm still in the same dilemma as fixing the system at a fundamental level is far more important than the views of any muppets/parties thereof that are standing. I will vote for whatever party is the most likely to break the strangle-hold Labour and Conservative have on the system, and my current view is to vote tactically for the most hung/least equitable possible outcome in the hope people will eventually grasp the whole system is shit. I'm actually well on course for the result I want (minority Lab government with less seats than the Tories propped up by the SNP etc, UKIP getting no seats at all for 14% of the vote etc etc). That might just be the tipping point needed to get shot of FPTP.
As for economics: I'm very much centre-ground, and after Osborne's "austerity" nonsense had very obviously failed within the first 12-18 months the government took a course not that dissimilar to what Vince Cable and many others who, unlike Gidiot, actually have some grasp of the subject suggested.
Robert
Tapehead
The uk economy is coming out of recession due to the cyclical nature of our economic system, not from any useful influence from any government party.
Government policies have simply slowed the process, so we now have an extremely weak recovery which will start heading south again in a few years as the next cyclical downturn kicks-in.
This recovery is so weak that most people don't feel it, and in many cases ;giving standards have only just recovered to pre crash levels.
If Labour are clever they can help lengthen the modest upswing and possibly increase vital spending as a result. Low oil prices and interest rate, coupled with zero inflation will help them. But its all short term and these 'good indicators' harm the economy in the longer term, and whatever is done, world economic conditions will dominate. Those aren't looking too good. Even the Chinese are now learning the hard lesson of the market, having embraced capitalism, experienced the boom and now see GDP heading rapidly south.
This is of course nothing new and these cycles have been with us for a few hundred years since the birth of this economic system. What's new is the severity of slumps and barely noticeable nature of the recoveries. This trend will continue until something snaps. The signs are already there on the continent.
Our electoral system is broken whichever method you choose because none will allow a challenge to the markets. You can have any flavour Starburst you like, but you will have Starbursts
A movement for something on the real left would see the police on the streets, possibly the army, and the sort of state repression seen in Argentina.
Government policies have simply slowed the process, so we now have an extremely weak recovery which will start heading south again in a few years as the next cyclical downturn kicks-in.
This recovery is so weak that most people don't feel it, and in many cases ;giving standards have only just recovered to pre crash levels.
If Labour are clever they can help lengthen the modest upswing and possibly increase vital spending as a result. Low oil prices and interest rate, coupled with zero inflation will help them. But its all short term and these 'good indicators' harm the economy in the longer term, and whatever is done, world economic conditions will dominate. Those aren't looking too good. Even the Chinese are now learning the hard lesson of the market, having embraced capitalism, experienced the boom and now see GDP heading rapidly south.
This is of course nothing new and these cycles have been with us for a few hundred years since the birth of this economic system. What's new is the severity of slumps and barely noticeable nature of the recoveries. This trend will continue until something snaps. The signs are already there on the continent.
Our electoral system is broken whichever method you choose because none will allow a challenge to the markets. You can have any flavour Starburst you like, but you will have Starbursts
A movement for something on the real left would see the police on the streets, possibly the army, and the sort of state repression seen in Argentina.
Joe Hutch
Mate of the bloke
Our electoral system is broken whichever method you choose because none will allow a challenge to the markets. You can have any flavour Starburst you like, but you will have Starbursts
A movement for something on the real left would see the police on the streets, possibly the army, and the sort of state repression seen in Argentina.
Or Russia.
MikeMA
pfm Member
And there you have it. The influence of government is marginal.
Mullardman
Moderately extreme...
The uk economy is coming out of recession due to the cyclical nature of our economic system, not from any useful influence from any government party.
Government policies have simply slowed the process, so we now have an extremely weak recovery which will start heading south again in a few years as the next cyclical downturn kicks-in.
This recovery is so weak that most people don't feel it, and in many cases ;giving standards have only just recovered to pre crash levels.
If Labour are clever they can help lengthen the modest upswing and possibly increase vital spending as a result. Low oil prices and interest rate, coupled with zero inflation will help them. But its all short term and these 'good indicators' harm the economy in the longer term, and whatever is done, world economic conditions will dominate. Those aren't looking too good. Even the Chinese are now learning the hard lesson of the market, having embraced capitalism, experienced the boom and now see GDP heading rapidly south.
This is of course nothing new and these cycles have been with us for a few hundred years since the birth of this economic system. What's new is the severity of slumps and barely noticeable nature of the recoveries. This trend will continue until something snaps. The signs are already there on the continent.
Our electoral system is broken whichever method you choose because none will allow a challenge to the markets. You can have any flavour Starburst you like, but you will have Starbursts
A movement for something on the real left would see the police on the streets, possibly the army, and the sort of state repression seen in Argentina.
Yes. Sadly I predict that my children and many others will be victims of the inexorable force for change.
Whatever the current power elite would have you believe, capitalism is an economic system which, like all systems before it, has run its course. It has become a house of cards, based on a perception of value which is defunct.
Soon, it will become apparent to all just what is valuable on this planet. Gold and Diamonds won't feature heavily. Clean water, clean air and food will.
jackbarron
Chelsea, London
I look forward to a real left uprising. Sooner or later the current economic and social system has to be turned over if nations are to survive.
Exactly. This is why I will vote for the Greens. I've done it before on a local council level, but unfortunately stuck my X next to the Lib Dems in the last general election.
Mick, I don't think parties have to compromise in the way that the Lib-Dems have.
Clegg has such a thirst for power, he doesn't care that he shafted the Lib-Dem voters. In fact he is going to try and get away with it again.
The justifications that Clegg has come out with for supporting repressive and expensive Tory policies are laughable. The guy is a lying, corporate, f**kwit.
Jack
Cloth-Ears
pfm Member
Cobblers.
Capitalism has not run it's course.
Wrong forms of it may have become entrenched with power. But the basic idea is sound and is conducive to freedom.
Reform of some of the shit that has taken hold and entwined with the political process, is what is needed.
Do NOT throw the baby out with the bath water.
Basically, capitalism is good.
Oh and, from good capitalism working well, we can with broad consent, take off slices from a good cake, to provide for causes of common good and to help manage society efficiently in ways capitalism is ill suited to do.
But it is NOT a spent force.
Capitalism has not run it's course.
Wrong forms of it may have become entrenched with power. But the basic idea is sound and is conducive to freedom.
Reform of some of the shit that has taken hold and entwined with the political process, is what is needed.
Do NOT throw the baby out with the bath water.
Basically, capitalism is good.
Oh and, from good capitalism working well, we can with broad consent, take off slices from a good cake, to provide for causes of common good and to help manage society efficiently in ways capitalism is ill suited to do.
But it is NOT a spent force.
Cloth-Ears
pfm Member
Good posting, Cloffo, you really know what you're talking about.
NeilR
pfm Member
The uk economy is coming out of recession due to the cyclical nature of our economic system, not from any useful influence from any government party.
Government policies have simply slowed the process, so we now have an extremely weak recovery which will start heading south again in a few years as the next cyclical downturn kicks-in.
This recovery is so weak that most people don't feel it, and in many cases ;giving standards have only just recovered to pre crash levels.
If Labour are clever they can help lengthen the modest upswing and possibly increase vital spending as a result. Low oil prices and interest rate, coupled with zero inflation will help them. But its all short term and these 'good indicators' harm the economy in the longer term, and whatever is done, world economic conditions will dominate. Those aren't looking too good. Even the Chinese are now learning the hard lesson of the market, having embraced capitalism, experienced the boom and now see GDP heading rapidly south.
This is of course nothing new and these cycles have been with us for a few hundred years since the birth of this economic system. What's new is the severity of slumps and barely noticeable nature of the recoveries. This trend will continue until something snaps. The signs are already there on the continent.
Our electoral system is broken whichever method you choose because none will allow a challenge to the markets. You can have any flavour Starburst you like, but you will have Starbursts
A movement for something on the real left would see the police on the streets, possibly the army, and the sort of state repression seen in Argentina.
Whilst I certainly agree that some things are very wrong with the current system and changes are needed, your hope that there will be some sort of uprising and the system will be overthrown is just delusional, IMO. it isn't going to happen. There is simply no widespread public support for the kinds of extreme politics you advocate.
And your example of what is happening in Europe is false, the single currency isn't much to do with capitalism, rather it is a political project implemented without much thought as to its economic viability. We are now finding out that it isn't viable!
SteveS1
I heard that, pardon?
So you don't actually understand what being the junior partner in coalition means then.
Clegg's choice, not that anyone locked into idealistic rant will choose to comprehend, was deal or no deal. No deal would have enabled Cameron to go for a fresh mandate, claiming that he wanted to clear up the mess and was being prevented by a minority partner. This would, in Clegg's opinion, have been very risky with an electorate looking for decisive outcomes and still smarting with Brown, result - deep unpopularity. A new election with a stronger chance that Cameron would win outright was definitely worth avoiding yet he has been crucified by people who purport to support him or at least his opposition to Cameron.
It is typical of the left's preoccupation with squabbling among themselves that they have helped the media to concentrate on the compromises that Clegg had to make and allow it to become the total focus. While Cameron has been left to look like he was able to deliver his manifesto largely unfetted - which he wasn't, because he too had to deal. But you'd never know it. The left is far too good at being it's own opposition, the Tories must love that.
If SNP, Labour or Lib Dem are involved in coalition after this election, they too will not be able to deliver all of their manifesto. That's how it works. The sparts will, of course, prefer defeat because that will preserve their ideological purity.
matthewr
spɹɐʍʞɔɐq spɹoɔǝɹ ɹnoʎ sʎɐld
Or he could have formed a government with Labour, managed the economy in a sensible manner based on basic Econics, not lost (at least) 5% of GDP and cost every man, woman and child (at least) £1500 through his disastrous, ad hoc, ideologically motivated macroeconomic experiments.
The fundmental problem for the LibDems and their voters is that it's a Left of centre party that is led my a small number of Right of centre Orange Book types. Hopefully, Clegg will be gone post-election and the problem will go away.
Tony L
Administrator
I think that's somewhat unfair. They are a centralist party and they formed a government with the party that had attained the largest vote-share and number of seats in the election. It would have been rather hard for them to do otherwise in the political climate of that election, though I suspect there is a rather better mass comprehension of coalition/consensus politics now. Can you imagine the stink had they formed a coalition with the then widely detested Gordon Brown leading a failed Labour administration that had come second to the Conservatives by quite some distance? Remember the Tories were still hugging huskies, hoodies, wind-turbines etc at that point and rather appealed to the centre-ground.
In many ways it was a no-win situation for the LDs as the whole UK political system is not designed to cope with anything but a majority from one of two archaic parties and a polulation with that expectation. In some respects I wish they'd have just done a confidence and supply deal, but that might well have ended worse with an early election and a truly disastrous Conservative majority. As a party they'd have achieved less but would have emerged from the process less damaged. On the whole I think they did OK and politics today is a rather more interesting place as a result.
SteveS1
I heard that, pardon?
Brown/Balls and 'managing the economy in a sensible manner' just did not go together, rightly or wrongly in the public's eyes. At that time, Clegg would have got absolutely pilloried for trying to work a fragile tiny majority with hugely unpopular Brown.
The years since provide much to comment on, but they can't re-write how that would have played at the time. They wouldn't have lasted and Clegg knew it, the door would have been opened to a vote of no confidence within the first year or so and a strong possibilty of a full Tory majority with both Clegg's and Labour's stock nowhere near where it needed to be to prevent it.
SteveS1
I heard that, pardon?
This. But my disappointment is more to do with how the left is complicit in the Tory's interpretation of how the coalition has gone. They have successfully got everything bad attached to Clegg and everything they feel is good attached to themselves and rather than roast that assertion, the sparts are busy kicking Clegg. Now I know success has many fathers and failure is always an orphan, but this is a ridiculous interpretation and look how many people have bought it.
SteveG
pfm Member
Voting LibDem means voting for someone else to make your mind up for you on whether you're voting Tory or Labour.
deanf
pfm Member
An interesting article from the Guardian: How much of the Liberal Democrats' 2010 election manifesto was implemented?
It seems to me the vast majority of what they got through fitted in nicely with Tory policy. So a few tacks and jibes but the ship sailed in the same direction.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics...crats-2010-election-manifesto-was-implemented
It seems to me the vast majority of what they got through fitted in nicely with Tory policy. So a few tacks and jibes but the ship sailed in the same direction.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics...crats-2010-election-manifesto-was-implemented
SteveS1
I heard that, pardon?
Err no. Ignoring the childish opening, I do see the irony of idealists who prefer to be in opposition with their political street cred intact, rather than work at limiting the damage of those they profess to be most opposed to.
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